Hi. I am Jim Bernardin and I had a lot to do with with making Chevy magazine and newspaper ads, commercials, catalogs, and sales promotion stuff for 35 years. People like collecting many of the pieces and they are available mostly as tear sheets from old magazines and still existing catalogs. But nobody ever says anything about who did them and why. That is information I will try to provide. I hope it will make owning an old Chevy ad even more fun.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

'58 Chevrolet Illustration By Austin Briggs

No headline here because all I have is a picture of this wonderful illustration by Austin Briggs. I'll try to get the ad to go with it when I get back home but I thought you might enjoy seeing it even without the ad. What a wonderful artist he was. Art like this may not belong in a museum but it belongs somewhere where people can see it in the future. This is the art that people saw every day fifty years ago. Sure it was in an ad but they saw it and they were moved by it. To me it is very much like what Norman Rockwell gave to America with his Saturday Evening Post magazine covers. And, it wasn't only Austin Briggs but a whole generation of artists that helped build brands and sell Chevrolets, Fords, Coca Cola, and any other American product that was heavily advertised. What a time it was. What people they were. What artists they were. How sad they could be forgotten.

2 comments:

Lill Engedahl
said...

HiI just want u to know this. I am a 23year old girl from norway, and I am writing a large design paper about retro-design at my universety, where I am using Chevrolet grafic design, from 1950 to 1980 as examples, and I will make a website out of this.

However, I just want u to know that even thoug I was born i the 1980´s, I love this old design. It is my pation. I have a 1952 chevy styleline deluxe, and I grew up with all these old chevys. I have tryed to find som old design manuals from Chevrolet from 1950 to 1980, but found nothing. I found your page here, and it is helping me alot!

I think there should be books on thees amzing artists and theyr work. Someone that knows that much about it as u, should try making books like that. I would by them right away.

Anyway, thankyou for shearing this, hope my english was understandebul.

Hi Lill,Thank you very much for your interest and comments. You and those like you are the main reason I am making my blog. I spent most of my life working on Chevy ads and I would like to preserve their contribution to Chevrolet and America. Few people of your generation know anything about the ads that reflected much of what was happening in the auto industry back then. It was a happier time for General Motor, Chevrolet, and America. We had no computers to help compose our ads and when I see what is being done now in print, I think it may have been an advantage for us. I still feel that illustrations for ads should do more than simply show the product.I look forward to seeing your website and other items of your work. Good luck with it. Jim